1. The Return of D.D. Guttenplan
Readers may recall D.D. Guttenplan's article about the trial
published in the New York Times last June. D.D. Guttenplan is back
publishing a major piece on the trial in the February 2000 issue of the
Atlantic Magazine which reached subscribers today. It is not online yet,
but should be by week's end at http://www.theatlantic.com/
It is positioned as a major piece with the following blurb on the cover,
"The Holocaust on Trial. In a suit in Great Britain a writer with
disturbing views makes historical truth the defendant." Guttenplan is also
profiled within on the contents page as the issue's featured writer.
The article has a down to the wire quality with an interview with the
presiding judge in the case just days before the trial started. Guttenplan
was interviewed on CNN for last Sunday's broadcast. That transcript
was sent to you in a previous posting.
BBC 01.19.00
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_609000/609322.stm
Historian David Irving must be "mad or a liar" to suggest Jews deported to
the East during WWII were not being sent to their deaths, a court has heard.
Mr Irving is suing Professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books for libel
over claims in her book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, that he was a "Holocaust denier".
The 62-year-old author of Hitler's War and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third
Reich alleges Prof Lipstadt's book accuses him of distorting statistics and
documents to serve his own ideological purposes. He says it has generated
"waves of hatred" against him.
On Tuesday, Richard Rampton QC, defending Prof Lipstadt, told the High Court
in London that no "sane" person could conclude that hundreds of thousands of
Jews were transported to the middle of nowhere on the Russian border during
World War II to "restore their health".
The previous day, the controversial historian had told the court that
messages intercepted by British wartime intelligence indicated trains
transporting Jews to the camps were equipped with a "very substantial amount
of food", and "tools of the trade" for their occupants.
He said this indicated "the system that was sending them was apprehending
that they would be doing something when they got there".
Middle of nowhere
Mr Irving, of Mayfair, London, says he has never claimed that the Holocaust
did not take place.
He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and denies there was a
systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp gas chambers.
Mr Rampton, questioning Mr Irving on whether or not he denied the Holocaust
took place, asked what he believed the Jews sent to "little villages in the
middle of nowhere" on the Russian border in eastern Poland in 1942 were
going to do there.
The historian replied: "The documents do not tell me... There could be any
number of convincing explanations."
The case is not being heard in front a jury as both sides felt the mass of
documentation made it more appropriate for a judge alone.
The hearing continues. It is expected to last up to three months.
Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited Press Association Newsfile
January 18, 2000, Tuesday 10:08 AM Eastern Time
QC CHALLENGES HISTORIAN OVER WARTIME TRANSPORT OF JEWS
BY: Cathy Gordon and Jan Colley, PA News
No "sane" person could conclude that hundreds of thousands of Jews were
transported to the middle of nowhere on the Russian border during World War
Two to "restore their health", the High Court Holocaust libel trial heard
today.
Richard Rampton QC, defending American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin
Books against a libel claim brought against them by controversial historian
David Irving, told the court in London that anyone making such a suggestion
was either "mad or a liar".
Mr Rampton made his comments during his cross-examination of 62-year-old Mr
Irving, who claims that Professor Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the
Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, has generated waves of
hatred against him.
Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, is suing over a claim
that he is a "Holocaust denier". He says the book alleges he has distorted
statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes and reach
historically untenable conclusions.
The author of Hitler's War says he has never claimed that the Holocaust did
not take place. He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and
denies there was a systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp
gas chambers.
Mr Rampton, questioning Mr Irving on whether or not he was a "Holocaust
denier", asked what the hundreds of thousands of Jews transported to "little
villages in the middle of nowhere" on the Russian border in eastern Poland
in 1942 were going to do there.
Mr Irving replied: "The documents do not tell me."
Counsel asked him to try to construct in his own mind a convincing explanation.
Mr Irving said: "There could be any number of convincing explanations. What
is the point of that exercise?"
Mr Rampton said it was to "show the scale of the operation and in due course
to demonstrate that anybody who suggests that these hundreds of thousands of
Jews were sent to these tiny villages in order to restore their health is
either mad or a liar".
Counsel asked him if, for example, the custodian of the museum at Auschwitz
proposed a figure of 1.2 million Jews murdered, he would accept that evidence.
Mr Irving replied: "No. I have got reason not to."
Copyright 2000 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd. Daily Record
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
SLAUGHTER OF JEWS BY GAS 'NEVER HAPPENED'; HISTORIAN'S LIBEL TRIAL CLAIM
BY: Harry Arnold
A BRITISH historian denied in court yesterday that the Nazis murdered
millions of Jews in gas chambers.
David Irving, 62, claimed there had never been a systematic German plan to
wipe out the Jewish race in World War II.
He said the SS drove their victims from their homes and sent them to eastern
Europe "with food and equipment to start a new life". Trains transporting
Jews were well stocked with provisions.
Irving was giving evidence in his libel case against an American writer who
condemned his view of the war. He claims Deborah Lipstadt branded him a
"Holocaust denier", destroyed his career and generated "waves of hatred
against him".
He told the High Court in London possibly one million Jews were killed by
the Nazis, "but not by the methods handed down to us by historians".
Gas chambers were not used to any great extent, he alleged. It was
"logistically impossible to kill millions in the way we have been told".
Irving admitted once telling a press conference: "The biggest lie of the
lot, the libel against the German people, is that the Germans had factories
of death with gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of their
opponents."
Defence counsel Richard Rampton QC told Irving he was concerned with his
"readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and the Nazis." Irving
said he strongly objected to that suggestion.
He agreed a great many Jews had been killed, whether by "kicking, gassing,
shooting or hanging".
But he insisted there were no signed documents to prove Hitler ordered the
"final solution", although he may have wanted to put it off until the war
was over.
Mr Rampton showed Irving a copy of a 1942 report signed by Heinrich Himmler,
head of the SS, and marked for Hitler's attention. It revealed 363,000 Jews
had been killed in eastern Europe.
Irving agreed Hitler had probably seen the report, but added: "It still does
not show that there was systematic killing."
He responded with a document of his own, showing that a train taking 944
Jews from Berlin to Lithuania in 1941 carried 24 days worth of food for a
three-day journey.
"It's a tiny dent in the image we have of the Holocaust," he said, claiming
it went against the idea of Jews being stuffed into cattle trucks with no
food or water to arrive half dead.
Irving added: "The system sent the victims to the east with food and
equipment to start a new life. Once they arrived, the system broke down and
the murderers stepped in."
He accepted there was "a lot of hardship and cruelty and barbarism", but
questioned the impartiality of experts for the defence.
Mr Rampton said the Jews on the train to Lithuania had probably paid for the
food themselves. Irving agreed it was quite likely, because Jewish families
driven out of Berlin were "robbed blind".
Ms Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, and her publishers Penguin deny libel. The case continues.
Copyright 2000 Newspaper Publishing PLC The Independent (London)
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
JEWS 'WELL CARED FOR' ON NAZI TRAINS, SAYS IRVING
BY: Ian Burrell Home Affairs Correspondent
THE REVISIONIST historian David Irving told a court yesterday that the
Holocaust was not as bad as people thought because Jews were transported to
concentration camps on trains that were "well provisioned".
"It's a bit of a dent, a tiny dent in the image we have of the Holocaust
today," the 62-year-old author of Hitler's War told the High Court in London
during his libel battle with Penguin Books and an American author. The
availability of provisions went against the accepted image of victims being
stuffed into cattle trucks and shipped across Europe with no food or water,
he said.
In fact, he added, intercepted messages indicated that the trains were
equipped with a "very substantial amount of food" to keep the Jews going for
three weeks after their arrival at the camps. Their appliances or "tools of
the trade" were also on board, he said.
Mr Irving said: "The system that was sending them was apprehending that they
would be doing something when they got there."
His comments were based on a telegram message about the transportation of
944 Jews from Berlin to Lithuania on 17 November 1941, decoded by British
intelligence at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. It showed that there was
24 days' worth of food on board for the three-day journey.
Mr Irving is suing Deborah Lipstadt, an academic, and Penguin for libel over
claims that he is a "Holocaust denier" in the 1994 book Denying the
Holocaust: The growing assault on truth and memory.
He says the book alleges that he has distorted statistics and documents to
serve his own ideological purposes and reach historically untenable
conclusions and adds that it has generated "waves of hatred" against him.
Cross-examining Mr Irving, who lives in Mayfair, central London, Richard
Rampton QC for Professor Lipstadt and Penguin, said he was concerned with
the historian's "readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and
the Nazis".
Mr Irving told Mr Justice Gray, who is hearing the case without a jury, that
he "strongly objected" to the suggestion. "Here's a British intercept of a
SS telegram which has not been quoted by any of your (Mr Rampton's) experts
because it doesn't fit into the picture that they are trying to create," he
said.
The historian maintains that although the deportation programme may have
been "brutal and cruel", it was not a "systematic" plan to exterminate the
Jews.
But Mr Rampton said it was possible that the food had been paid for by the
Jews on the shipment. Mr Irving agreed that the Jews kicked out of Berlin
were "robbed blind".
Mr Rampton showed the court a report which said that 2,934 Jewish evacuees
from Berlin and other cities were shot in the east on 25 November 1941. Mr
Irving said "it was not impossible" that the trainload of Jews in the
message ended up "in that atrocity". He denied that they were "part of the
system", saying: "The system ended when the train arrived. The system put
the victims on the trains and sent them to the east with food and equipment
to start a new life. Once they arrived, the system broke down and the
murderers stepped in."
The hearing resumes today.
===
Irving insists that Hitler did not order the Holocaust
BY TIM JONES
The TIMES, London 01.19.00
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?999
THE historian David Irving refused to accept yesterday that hundreds of
thousands of Jews had been sent to concentration camps as part of Hitler's
plan to exterminate them.
His denial that the liquidation of Jews was part of a plan personally
approved by the F=FChrer came during a sharp exchange with Richard Rampton,
QC, during a libel case at the High Court in London.
Referring to the transportation of Jews from Warsaw and other towns and
cities to the villages of Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec, near the Russian
border, Mr Rampton suggested that "only a fool and a liar" would suggest
that they were being sent there for their health.
No sensible person, Mr Rampton said, would conclude from all the evidence
that thousands of Jews were being shipped to the three villages close to the
Russian border for benign purposes.
Mr Irving, 62, who is conducting his own case, replied: "There could be any
number of convincing explanations, from the most innocent to the most
sinister."
He added: "During World War II large numbers of people were sent to
Aldershot but no one believes that there they were put into gas chambers."
In another exchange, Mr Irving said he could not accept that 1.2 million
Jews had been deliberately murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Mr Irving, who maintains that the gas chamber at Auschwitz was built by the
Poles after the war as a tourist attraction, said: "I don't accept that and
I have good reason not to."
He indicated that he would justify his belief about what occurred at the
infamous camp when he cross-examines Holocaust experts who are to appear in
court during the course of the trial, which is expected to last for more
than two months.
Speaking from the witness box in Court 73, in front of a packed public
gallery in which there were many Jewish people, Mr Irving maintained that
Hitler had not been aware of the mass slaughter of the Jews. He said that in
the records of the so-called "table talks" between Hitler, Heinrich Himmler,
the head of the SS, and Joseph Goebbels, his Propaganda Minister, there was
no evidence that the F=FChrer knew of the "Final Solution".
Even in 1942, Mr Irving said, Hitler was talking in terms of shipping the
Jews to the island of Madagascar to begin new lives but that operation could
not be carried out because of the naval war.
Hitler, he said, did not want the Jews transported to Siberia, which would
merely toughen up the strain of the Jewish "bacillus". He wished them to be
removed totally from the Greater Reich.
Mr Irving said that during the conversations, at which Hitler and his
henchmen had discussed the course of the war, there was no suggestion that
the Jews should be systematically killed.
Mr Irving, who accepts that hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered but
denies that the killings were part of a systematic programme of
extermination, accused Mr Rampton of disregarding evidence which did not
concur with his case.
During the trial, Mr Irving has been branded a "falsifier of history and a
liar" for questioning the massacre of six million Jews by the Nazis. He has
been accused of denying the Holocaust and Hitler's role in it.
Mr Irving is suing Deborah Lipstadt, an American academic, and Penguin Books
for claiming in her book Denying the Holocaust: the growing assault on truth
and memory that he was a "Hitler partisan" who had twisted history.
===
The Stakes in a Holocaust Trial
By WALTER REICH
ASHINGTON -- Alarmists are proclaiming that a libel trial that opened last
week in London is nothing less than a trial of the truth of the Holocaust,
and that if the plaintiff wins, history will lose.
In fact, the reality of the Holocaust, which is overwhelmingly documented,
doesn't hinge on the outcome of this trial. The danger is that the alarms
themselves may give the verdict more weight than it deserves, so that if the
plaintiff wins, the alarmists will have created the very sort of damage they
are trying to prevent: doubt among the ill-informed about whether the
Holocaust happened. And because of trial technicalities or the nature of
British libel law, the plaintiff could conceivably win.
David Irving has written numerous books on the Nazi era and has maintained,
among other absurdities, that Jews were not gassed at Auschwitz.
He is suing Deborah Lipstadt, a professor at Emory University, and her
British publisher, Penguin Books. Ms. Lipstadt has called Mr. Irving "one of
the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial."
Ms. Lipstadt has said that had she not contested the libel suit, Mr. Irving
"would have won by default, and his definition of the Holocaust would have
become the standard definition recognized by the High Court in London." An
official of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has warned that "any victory for Mr.
Irving will be a loss for truth and accuracy." The British historian David
Cesarani has predicted that "the consequences for both parties will be
enormous." Headlines around the world have echoed this theme.
As a legal strategy, the apocalyptic warnings are understandable. They rally
support for the defense, which has deployed a large team of prominent
attorneys and expert witnesses.
And they may remind the trial judge that, if he were to decide in favor of
the plaintiff, even on a technicality, he might give aid and comfort to
those who have denied that the Holocaust happened.
But raising these alarms has also raised the stakes, giving the trial a
significance in the public mind that it does not really warrant.
British libel law gives Mr. Irving advantages in the trial that he would not
have in the United States. Here, the burden of truth in a libel case is on
the plaintiff, and in an American court Mr. Irving, as a public figure,
would have to prove that Ms. Lipstadt's statements had been made with
"actual malice" -- with knowledge that they were false or with reckless
disregard of the truth. In Britain, where the law values the protection of a
person's reputation more than the protection of freedom of speech and press,
the burden of proof is on the defendant. Ms. Lipstadt and Penguin will try
to prove that her statements were true. This will be a challenge because of
Mr. Irving's clever and shifting distortions of Holocaust history.
Given the legal twists, it's conceivable that the judge could decide in
favor of Mr. Irving. That's why the public should understand in advance
that, while such a finding might say something about the nature of British
libel law, it would say nothing at all about the reality of the Holocaust.
Walter Reich, professor of international affairs, ethics and human behavior
at George Washington University, is a former director of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum.
1. The Return of D.D. Guttenplan
Readers may recall D.D. Guttenplan's article about the trial
published in the New York Times last June. D.D. Guttenplan is back
publishing a major piece on the trial in the February 2000 issue of the
Atlantic Magazine which reached subscribers today. It is not online yet,
but should be by week's end at http://www.theatlantic.com/
It is positioned as a major piece with the following blurb on the cover,
"The Holocaust on Trial. In a suit in Great Britain a writer with
disturbing views makes historical truth the defendant." Guttenplan is also
profiled within on the contents page as the issue's featured writer.
The article has a down to the wire quality with an interview with the
presiding judge in the case just days before the trial started. Guttenplan
was interviewed on CNN for last Sunday's broadcast. That transcript
was sent to you in a previous posting.
BBC 01.19.00
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_609000/609322.stm
Historian David Irving must be "mad or a liar" to suggest Jews deported to
the East during WWII were not being sent to their deaths, a court has heard.
Mr Irving is suing Professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books for libel
over claims in her book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, that he was a "Holocaust denier".
The 62-year-old author of Hitler's War and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third
Reich alleges Prof Lipstadt's book accuses him of distorting statistics and
documents to serve his own ideological purposes. He says it has generated
"waves of hatred" against him.
On Tuesday, Richard Rampton QC, defending Prof Lipstadt, told the High Court
in London that no "sane" person could conclude that hundreds of thousands of
Jews were transported to the middle of nowhere on the Russian border during
World War II to "restore their health".
The previous day, the controversial historian had told the court that
messages intercepted by British wartime intelligence indicated trains
transporting Jews to the camps were equipped with a "very substantial amount
of food", and "tools of the trade" for their occupants.
He said this indicated "the system that was sending them was apprehending
that they would be doing something when they got there".
Middle of nowhere
Mr Irving, of Mayfair, London, says he has never claimed that the Holocaust
did not take place.
He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and denies there was a
systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp gas chambers.
Mr Rampton, questioning Mr Irving on whether or not he denied the Holocaust
took place, asked what he believed the Jews sent to "little villages in the
middle of nowhere" on the Russian border in eastern Poland in 1942 were
going to do there.
The historian replied: "The documents do not tell me... There could be any
number of convincing explanations."
The case is not being heard in front a jury as both sides felt the mass of
documentation made it more appropriate for a judge alone.
The hearing continues. It is expected to last up to three months.
Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited Press Association Newsfile
January 18, 2000, Tuesday 10:08 AM Eastern Time
QC CHALLENGES HISTORIAN OVER WARTIME TRANSPORT OF JEWS
BY: Cathy Gordon and Jan Colley, PA News
No "sane" person could conclude that hundreds of thousands of Jews were
transported to the middle of nowhere on the Russian border during World War
Two to "restore their health", the High Court Holocaust libel trial heard
today.
Richard Rampton QC, defending American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin
Books against a libel claim brought against them by controversial historian
David Irving, told the court in London that anyone making such a suggestion
was either "mad or a liar".
Mr Rampton made his comments during his cross-examination of 62-year-old Mr
Irving, who claims that Professor Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the
Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, has generated waves of
hatred against him.
Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, is suing over a claim
that he is a "Holocaust denier". He says the book alleges he has distorted
statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes and reach
historically untenable conclusions.
The author of Hitler's War says he has never claimed that the Holocaust did
not take place. He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and
denies there was a systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp
gas chambers.
Mr Rampton, questioning Mr Irving on whether or not he was a "Holocaust
denier", asked what the hundreds of thousands of Jews transported to "little
villages in the middle of nowhere" on the Russian border in eastern Poland
in 1942 were going to do there.
Mr Irving replied: "The documents do not tell me."
Counsel asked him to try to construct in his own mind a convincing explanation.
Mr Irving said: "There could be any number of convincing explanations. What
is the point of that exercise?"
Mr Rampton said it was to "show the scale of the operation and in due course
to demonstrate that anybody who suggests that these hundreds of thousands of
Jews were sent to these tiny villages in order to restore their health is
either mad or a liar".
Counsel asked him if, for example, the custodian of the museum at Auschwitz
proposed a figure of 1.2 million Jews murdered, he would accept that evidence.
Mr Irving replied: "No. I have got reason not to."
Copyright 2000 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd. Daily Record
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
SLAUGHTER OF JEWS BY GAS 'NEVER HAPPENED'; HISTORIAN'S LIBEL TRIAL CLAIM
BY: Harry Arnold
A BRITISH historian denied in court yesterday that the Nazis murdered
millions of Jews in gas chambers.
David Irving, 62, claimed there had never been a systematic German plan to
wipe out the Jewish race in World War II.
He said the SS drove their victims from their homes and sent them to eastern
Europe "with food and equipment to start a new life". Trains transporting
Jews were well stocked with provisions.
Irving was giving evidence in his libel case against an American writer who
condemned his view of the war. He claims Deborah Lipstadt branded him a
"Holocaust denier", destroyed his career and generated "waves of hatred
against him".
He told the High Court in London possibly one million Jews were killed by
the Nazis, "but not by the methods handed down to us by historians".
Gas chambers were not used to any great extent, he alleged. It was
"logistically impossible to kill millions in the way we have been told".
Irving admitted once telling a press conference: "The biggest lie of the
lot, the libel against the German people, is that the Germans had factories
of death with gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of their
opponents."
Defence counsel Richard Rampton QC told Irving he was concerned with his
"readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and the Nazis." Irving
said he strongly objected to that suggestion.
He agreed a great many Jews had been killed, whether by "kicking, gassing,
shooting or hanging".
But he insisted there were no signed documents to prove Hitler ordered the
"final solution", although he may have wanted to put it off until the war
was over.
Mr Rampton showed Irving a copy of a 1942 report signed by Heinrich Himmler,
head of the SS, and marked for Hitler's attention. It revealed 363,000 Jews
had been killed in eastern Europe.
Irving agreed Hitler had probably seen the report, but added: "It still does
not show that there was systematic killing."
He responded with a document of his own, showing that a train taking 944
Jews from Berlin to Lithuania in 1941 carried 24 days worth of food for a
three-day journey.
"It's a tiny dent in the image we have of the Holocaust," he said, claiming
it went against the idea of Jews being stuffed into cattle trucks with no
food or water to arrive half dead.
Irving added: "The system sent the victims to the east with food and
equipment to start a new life. Once they arrived, the system broke down and
the murderers stepped in."
He accepted there was "a lot of hardship and cruelty and barbarism", but
questioned the impartiality of experts for the defence.
Mr Rampton said the Jews on the train to Lithuania had probably paid for the
food themselves. Irving agreed it was quite likely, because Jewish families
driven out of Berlin were "robbed blind".
Ms Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, and her publishers Penguin deny libel. The case continues.
Copyright 2000 Newspaper Publishing PLC The Independent (London)
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
JEWS 'WELL CARED FOR' ON NAZI TRAINS, SAYS IRVING
BY: Ian Burrell Home Affairs Correspondent
THE REVISIONIST historian David Irving told a court yesterday that the
Holocaust was not as bad as people thought because Jews were transported to
concentration camps on trains that were "well provisioned".
"It's a bit of a dent, a tiny dent in the image we have of the Holocaust
today," the 62-year-old author of Hitler's War told the High Court in London
during his libel battle with Penguin Books and an American author. The
availability of provisions went against the accepted image of victims being
stuffed into cattle trucks and shipped across Europe with no food or water,
he said.
In fact, he added, intercepted messages indicated that the trains were
equipped with a "very substantial amount of food" to keep the Jews going for
three weeks after their arrival at the camps. Their appliances or "tools of
the trade" were also on board, he said.
Mr Irving said: "The system that was sending them was apprehending that they
would be doing something when they got there."
His comments were based on a telegram message about the transportation of
944 Jews from Berlin to Lithuania on 17 November 1941, decoded by British
intelligence at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. It showed that there was
24 days' worth of food on board for the three-day journey.
Mr Irving is suing Deborah Lipstadt, an academic, and Penguin for libel over
claims that he is a "Holocaust denier" in the 1994 book Denying the
Holocaust: The growing assault on truth and memory.
He says the book alleges that he has distorted statistics and documents to
serve his own ideological purposes and reach historically untenable
conclusions and adds that it has generated "waves of hatred" against him.
Cross-examining Mr Irving, who lives in Mayfair, central London, Richard
Rampton QC for Professor Lipstadt and Penguin, said he was concerned with
the historian's "readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and
the Nazis".
Mr Irving told Mr Justice Gray, who is hearing the case without a jury, that
he "strongly objected" to the suggestion. "Here's a British intercept of a
SS telegram which has not been quoted by any of your (Mr Rampton's) experts
because it doesn't fit into the picture that they are trying to create," he
said.
The historian maintains that although the deportation programme may have
been "brutal and cruel", it was not a "systematic" plan to exterminate the
Jews.
But Mr Rampton said it was possible that the food had been paid for by the
Jews on the shipment. Mr Irving agreed that the Jews kicked out of Berlin
were "robbed blind".
Mr Rampton showed the court a report which said that 2,934 Jewish evacuees
from Berlin and other cities were shot in the east on 25 November 1941. Mr
Irving said "it was not impossible" that the trainload of Jews in the
message ended up "in that atrocity". He denied that they were "part of the
system", saying: "The system ended when the train arrived. The system put
the victims on the trains and sent them to the east with food and equipment
to start a new life. Once they arrived, the system broke down and the
murderers stepped in."
The hearing resumes today.
1. The Return of D.D. Guttenplan
Readers may recall D.D. Guttenplan's article about the trial
published in the New York Times last June. D.D. Guttenplan is back
publishing a major piece on the trial in the February 2000 issue of the
Atlantic Magazine which reached subscribers today. It is not online yet,
but should be by week's end at http://www.theatlantic.com/
It is positioned as a major piece with the following blurb on the cover,
"The Holocaust on Trial. In a suit in Great Britain a writer with
disturbing views makes historical truth the defendant." Guttenplan is also
profiled within on the contents page as the issue's featured writer.
The article has a down to the wire quality with an interview with the
presiding judge in the case just days before the trial started. Guttenplan
was interviewed on CNN for last Sunday's broadcast. That transcript
was sent to you in a previous posting.
BBC 01.19.00
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_609000/609322.stm
Historian David Irving must be "mad or a liar" to suggest Jews deported to
the East during WWII were not being sent to their deaths, a court has heard.
Mr Irving is suing Professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books for libel
over claims in her book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, that he was a "Holocaust denier".
The 62-year-old author of Hitler's War and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third
Reich alleges Prof Lipstadt's book accuses him of distorting statistics and
documents to serve his own ideological purposes. He says it has generated
"waves of hatred" against him.
On Tuesday, Richard Rampton QC, defending Prof Lipstadt, told the High Court
in London that no "sane" person could conclude that hundreds of thousands of
Jews were transported to the middle of nowhere on the Russian border during
World War II to "restore their health".
The previous day, the controversial historian had told the court that
messages intercepted by British wartime intelligence indicated trains
transporting Jews to the camps were equipped with a "very substantial amount
of food", and "tools of the trade" for their occupants.
He said this indicated "the system that was sending them was apprehending
that they would be doing something when they got there".
Middle of nowhere
Mr Irving, of Mayfair, London, says he has never claimed that the Holocaust
did not take place.
He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and denies there was a
systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp gas chambers.
Mr Rampton, questioning Mr Irving on whether or not he denied the Holocaust
took place, asked what he believed the Jews sent to "little villages in the
middle of nowhere" on the Russian border in eastern Poland in 1942 were
going to do there.
The historian replied: "The documents do not tell me... There could be any
number of convincing explanations."
The case is not being heard in front a jury as both sides felt the mass of
documentation made it more appropriate for a judge alone.
The hearing continues. It is expected to last up to three months.
Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited Press Association Newsfile
January 18, 2000, Tuesday 10:08 AM Eastern Time
QC CHALLENGES HISTORIAN OVER WARTIME TRANSPORT OF JEWS
BY: Cathy Gordon and Jan Colley, PA News
No "sane" person could conclude that hundreds of thousands of Jews were
transported to the middle of nowhere on the Russian border during World War
Two to "restore their health", the High Court Holocaust libel trial heard
today.
Richard Rampton QC, defending American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin
Books against a libel claim brought against them by controversial historian
David Irving, told the court in London that anyone making such a suggestion
was either "mad or a liar".
Mr Rampton made his comments during his cross-examination of 62-year-old Mr
Irving, who claims that Professor Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the
Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, has generated waves of
hatred against him.
Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, is suing over a claim
that he is a "Holocaust denier". He says the book alleges he has distorted
statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes and reach
historically untenable conclusions.
The author of Hitler's War says he has never claimed that the Holocaust did
not take place. He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and
denies there was a systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp
gas chambers.
Mr Rampton, questioning Mr Irving on whether or not he was a "Holocaust
denier", asked what the hundreds of thousands of Jews transported to "little
villages in the middle of nowhere" on the Russian border in eastern Poland
in 1942 were going to do there.
Mr Irving replied: "The documents do not tell me."
Counsel asked him to try to construct in his own mind a convincing explanation.
Mr Irving said: "There could be any number of convincing explanations. What
is the point of that exercise?"
Mr Rampton said it was to "show the scale of the operation and in due course
to demonstrate that anybody who suggests that these hundreds of thousands of
Jews were sent to these tiny villages in order to restore their health is
either mad or a liar".
Counsel asked him if, for example, the custodian of the museum at Auschwitz
proposed a figure of 1.2 million Jews murdered, he would accept that evidence.
Mr Irving replied: "No. I have got reason not to."
Copyright 2000 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd. Daily Record
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
SLAUGHTER OF JEWS BY GAS 'NEVER HAPPENED'; HISTORIAN'S LIBEL TRIAL CLAIM
BY: Harry Arnold
A BRITISH historian denied in court yesterday that the Nazis murdered
millions of Jews in gas chambers.
David Irving, 62, claimed there had never been a systematic German plan to
wipe out the Jewish race in World War II.
He said the SS drove their victims from their homes and sent them to eastern
Europe "with food and equipment to start a new life". Trains transporting
Jews were well stocked with provisions.
Irving was giving evidence in his libel case against an American writer who
condemned his view of the war. He claims Deborah Lipstadt branded him a
"Holocaust denier", destroyed his career and generated "waves of hatred
against him".
He told the High Court in London possibly one million Jews were killed by
the Nazis, "but not by the methods handed down to us by historians".
Gas chambers were not used to any great extent, he alleged. It was
"logistically impossible to kill millions in the way we have been told".
Irving admitted once telling a press conference: "The biggest lie of the
lot, the libel against the German people, is that the Germans had factories
of death with gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of their
opponents."
Defence counsel Richard Rampton QC told Irving he was concerned with his
"readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and the Nazis." Irving
said he strongly objected to that suggestion.
He agreed a great many Jews had been killed, whether by "kicking, gassing,
shooting or hanging".
But he insisted there were no signed documents to prove Hitler ordered the
"final solution", although he may have wanted to put it off until the war
was over.
Mr Rampton showed Irving a copy of a 1942 report signed by Heinrich Himmler,
head of the SS, and marked for Hitler's attention. It revealed 363,000 Jews
had been killed in eastern Europe.
Irving agreed Hitler had probably seen the report, but added: "It still does
not show that there was systematic killing."
He responded with a document of his own, showing that a train taking 944
Jews from Berlin to Lithuania in 1941 carried 24 days worth of food for a
three-day journey.
"It's a tiny dent in the image we have of the Holocaust," he said, claiming
it went against the idea of Jews being stuffed into cattle trucks with no
food or water to arrive half dead.
Irving added: "The system sent the victims to the east with food and
equipment to start a new life. Once they arrived, the system broke down and
the murderers stepped in."
He accepted there was "a lot of hardship and cruelty and barbarism", but
questioned the impartiality of experts for the defence.
Mr Rampton said the Jews on the train to Lithuania had probably paid for the
food themselves. Irving agreed it was quite likely, because Jewish families
driven out of Berlin were "robbed blind".
Ms Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, and her publishers Penguin deny libel. The case continues.
Copyright 2000 Newspaper Publishing PLC The Independent (London)
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
JEWS 'WELL CARED FOR' ON NAZI TRAINS, SAYS IRVING
BY: Ian Burrell Home Affairs Correspondent
THE REVISIONIST historian David Irving told a court yesterday that the
Holocaust was not as bad as people thought because Jews were transported to
concentration camps on trains that were "well provisioned".
"It's a bit of a dent, a tiny dent in the image we have of the Holocaust
today," the 62-year-old author of Hitler's War told the High Court in London
during his libel battle with Penguin Books and an American author. The
availability of provisions went against the accepted image of victims being
stuffed into cattle trucks and shipped across Europe with no food or water,
he said.
In fact, he added, intercepted messages indicated that the trains were
equipped with a "very substantial amount of food" to keep the Jews going for
three weeks after their arrival at the camps. Their appliances or "tools of
the trade" were also on board, he said.
Mr Irving said: "The system that was sending them was apprehending that they
would be doing something when they got there."
His comments were based on a telegram message about the transportation of
944 Jews from Berlin to Lithuania on 17 November 1941, decoded by British
intelligence at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. It showed that there was
24 days' worth of food on board for the three-day journey.
Mr Irving is suing Deborah Lipstadt, an academic, and Penguin for libel over
claims that he is a "Holocaust denier" in the 1994 book Denying the
Holocaust: The growing assault on truth and memory.
He says the book alleges that he has distorted statistics and documents to
serve his own ideological purposes and reach historically untenable
conclusions and adds that it has generated "waves of hatred" against him.
Cross-examining Mr Irving, who lives in Mayfair, central London, Richard
Rampton QC for Professor Lipstadt and Penguin, said he was concerned with
the historian's "readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and
the Nazis".
Mr Irving told Mr Justice Gray, who is hearing the case without a jury, that
he "strongly objected" to the suggestion. "Here's a British intercept of a
SS telegram which has not been quoted by any of your (Mr Rampton's) experts
because it doesn't fit into the picture that they are trying to create," he
said.
The historian maintains that although the deportation programme may have
been "brutal and cruel", it was not a "systematic" plan to exterminate the
Jews.
But Mr Rampton said it was possible that the food had been paid for by the
Jews on the shipment. Mr Irving agreed that the Jews kicked out of Berlin
were "robbed blind".
Mr Rampton showed the court a report which said that 2,934 Jewish evacuees
from Berlin and other cities were shot in the east on 25 November 1941. Mr
Irving said "it was not impossible" that the trainload of Jews in the
message ended up "in that atrocity". He denied that they were "part of the
system", saying: "The system ended when the train arrived. The system put
the victims on the trains and sent them to the east with food and equipment
to start a new life. Once they arrived, the system broke down and the
murderers stepped in."
The hearing resumes today.
===
This is an all UK update. It includes several late pieces from the Times of
London and UK wires running in several papers. See also the piece by Anne
Frank's step sister in reaction to the trial.
Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited Press Association Newsfile
January 19, 2000, Wednesday 09:12 AM Eastern Time
HOLOCAUST TRUCK GASSING CASES: I WAS WRONG - HISTORIAN
BY: Cathy Gordon, PA News.
Historian David Irving today admitted he was wrong when he stated publicly
that the gassing of Jews in trucks by the Nazis during the Second World War
was only carried out on a limited and experimental basis.
The author, who is seeking High Court libel damages against US academic
Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books over a claim that he is a "Holocaust
denier", agreed under cross-examination by their barrister that he had been
mistaken.
He was asked by Richard Rampton QC: "Do you now accept that statements you
have made to the effect 'Oh, yes, they used gassing trucks on a very limited
scale to experiment' were quite plainly wrong?"
The 62-year-old author of Hitler's War, who claims he was libelled in Prof
Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, replied: "Yes."
He told the court: "I am willing to eat humble pie if I have made a mistake."
What he had previously said about the scale and nature of those gassed in
trucks was based, he said, on his knowledge at the time.
Mr Irving's admission came after Mr Rampton referred him to a document which
showed that 97,000 Jews were gassed in three trucks in the course of five
weeks.
Mr Justice Gray, who is hearing the case without a jury, asked Mr Irving if
he would describe that as "very limited and experimental".
Stressing that "of course, I did not have this document when I said that",
Mr Irving replied: "No, this is systematic."
Mr Rampton accused the author of making statements about the gassing trucks
"which fly in the face of the available evidence".
He put to him: "I am suggesting that a man in your position does not enter
the arena waving flags and blowing trumpets unless he has taken the trouble
to verify what he is proposing to say, particularly when what he is
proposing to say is something of great sensitivity and importance to
millions of people throughout the world."
Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, denied entering the
arena waving flags and blowing trumpets and said he had made his comment a
press conference in 1989 "in response to a question".
He told the court: "I am not a Holocaust expert. I am a Hitler expert."
Mr Rampton asked: "Then why don't you keep your mouth shut about the
Holocaust?"
Mr Irving: "Because I am asked about it. It obsesses people."
He said he found the phrase "Holocaust denier" repugnant.
The author says he has never claimed that the Holocaust did not take place.
He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and denies there was a
systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp gas chambers.
Prof Lipstadt and Penguin Books deny libel. Mr Irving says their book
alleges he has distorted statistics and documents to serve his own
ideological purposes and reach historically untenable conclusions.
===
January 19, 2000 Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Limited The Times (London)
Irving insists that Hitler did not order the Holocaust
BY: Tim Jones
THE historian David Irving refused to accept yesterday that hundreds of
thousands of Jews had been sent to concentration camps as part of Hitler's
plan to exterminate them.
His denial that the liquidation of Jews was part of a plan personally
approved by the Fuhrer came during a sharp exchange with Richard Rampton,
QC, during a libel case at the High Court in London.
Referring to the transportation of Jews from Warsaw and other towns and
cities to the villages of Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec, near the Russian
border, Mr Rampton suggested that "only a fool and a liar" would suggest
that they were being sent there for their health.
No sensible person, Mr Rampton said, would conclude from all the evidence
that thousands of Jews were being shipped to the three villages close to the
Russian border for benign purposes.
Mr Irving, 62, who is conducting his own case, replied: "There could be any
number of convincing explanations, from the most innocent to the most
sinister."
He added: "During World War II large numbers of people were sent to
Aldershot but no one believes that there they were put into gas chambers."
In another exchange, Mr Irving said he could not accept that 1.2 million
Jews had been deliberately murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Mr Irving, who maintains that the gas chamber at Auschwitz was built by the
Poles after the war as a tourist attraction, said: "I don't accept that and
I have good reason not to."
He indicated that he would justify his belief about what occurred at the
infamous camp when he cross-examines Holocaust experts who are to appear in
court during the course of the trial, which is expected to last for more
than two months.
Speaking from the witness box in Court 73, in front of a packed public
gallery in which there were many Jewish people, Mr Irving maintained that
Hitler had not been aware of the mass slaughter of the Jews. He said that in
the records of the so-called "table talks" between Hitler, Heinrich Himmler,
the head of the SS, and Joseph Goebbels, his Propaganda Minister, there was
no evidence that the Fuhrer knew of the "Final Solution".
Even in 1942, Mr Irving said, Hitler was talking in terms of shipping the
Jews to the island of Madagascar to begin new lives but that operation could
not be carried out because of the naval war.
Hitler, he said, did not want the Jews transported to Siberia, which would
merely toughen up the strain of the Jewish "bacillus". He wished them to be
removed totally from the Greater Reich.
Mr Irving said that during the conversations, at which Hitler and his
henchmen had discussed the course of the war, there was no suggestion that
the Jews should be systematically killed.
Mr Irving, who accepts that hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered but
denies that the killings were part of a systematic programme of
extermination, accused Mr Rampton of disregarding evidence which did not
concur with his case.
During the trial, Mr Irving has been branded a "falsifier of history and a
liar" for questioning the massacre of six million Jews by the Nazis. He has
been accused of denying the Holocaust and Hitler's role in it.
Mr Irving is suing Deborah Lipstadt, an American academic, and Penguin Books
for claiming in her book Denying the Holocaust: the growing assault on truth
and memory that he was a "Hitler partisan" who had twisted history.
Copyright 2000 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd. Daily Record
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
===
SLAUGHTER OF JEWS BY GAS 'NEVER HAPPENED'; HISTORIAN'S LIBEL TRIAL CLAIM
BY: Harry Arnold
A BRITISH historian denied in court yesterday that the Nazis murdered
millions of Jews in gas chambers.
David Irving, 62, claimed there had never been a systematic German plan to
wipe out the Jewish race in World War II.
He said the SS drove their victims from their homes and sent them to eastern
Europe "with food and equipment to start a new life". Trains transporting
Jews were well stocked with provisions.
Irving was giving evidence in his libel case against an American writer who
condemned his view of the war. He claims Deborah Lipstadt branded him a
"Holocaust denier", destroyed his career and generated "waves of hatred
against him".
He told the High Court in London possibly one million Jews were killed by
the Nazis, "but not by the methods handed down to us by historians".
Gas chambers were not used to any great extent, he alleged. It was
"logistically impossible to kill millions in the way we have been told".
Irving admitted once telling a press conference: "The biggest lie of the
lot, the libel against the German people, is that the Germans had factories
of death with gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of their
opponents."
Defence counsel Richard Rampton QC told Irving he was concerned with his
"readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and the Nazis." Irving
said he strongly objected to that suggestion.
He agreed a great many Jews had been killed, whether by "kicking, gassing,
shooting or hanging".
But he insisted there were no signed documents to prove Hitler ordered the
"final solution", although he may have wanted to put it off until the war
was over.
Mr Rampton showed Irving a copy of a 1942 report signed by Heinrich Himmler,
head of the SS, and marked for Hitler's attention. It revealed 363,000 Jews
had been killed in eastern Europe.
Irving agreed Hitler had probably seen the report, but added: "It still does
not show that there was systematic killing."
He responded with a document of his own, showing that a train taking 944
Jews from Berlin to Lithuania in 1941 carried 24 days worth of food for a
three-day journey.
"It's a tiny dent in the image we have of the Holocaust," he said, claiming
it went against the idea of Jews being stuffed into cattle trucks with no
food or water to arrive half dead.
Irving added: "The system sent the victims to the east with food and
equipment to start a new life. Once they arrived, the system broke down and
the murderers stepped in."
He accepted there was "a lot of hardship and cruelty and barbarism", but
questioned the impartiality of experts for the defence.
Mr Rampton said the Jews on the train to Lithuania had probably paid for the
food themselves. Irving agreed it was quite likely, because Jewish families
driven out of Berlin were "robbed blind".
Ms Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, and her publishers Penguin deny libel. The case continues.
Copyright 2000 The Press Association Limited Press Association Newsfile
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
QC CHALLENGES HISTORIAN OVER WARTIME TRANSPORT OF JEWS
BY: Cathy Gordon and Jan Colley, PA News
No "sane" person could conclude that hundreds of thousands of Jews were
transported to the middle of nowhere on the Russian border during World War
Two to "restore their health", the High Court Holocaust libel trial heard
today.
Richard Rampton QC, defending American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin
Books against a libel claim brought against them by controversial historian
David Irving, told the court in London that anyone making such a suggestion
was either "mad or a liar".
Mr Rampton made his comments during his cross-examination of 62-year-old Mr
Irving, who claims that Professor Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the
Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, has generated waves of
hatred against him.
Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, is suing over a claim
that he is a "Holocaust denier". He says the book alleges he has distorted
statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes and reach
historically untenable conclusions.
The author of Hitler's War says he has never claimed that the Holocaust did
not take place. He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and
denies there was a systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp
gas chambers.
Mr Rampton, questioning Mr Irving on whether or not he was a "Holocaust
denier", asked what the hundreds of thousands of Jews transported to "little
villages in the middle of nowhere" on the Russian border in eastern Poland
in 1942 were going to do there.
Mr Irving replied: "The documents do not tell me."
Counsel asked him to try to construct in his own mind a convincing explanation.
Mr Irving said: "There could be any number of convincing explanations. What
is the point of that exercise?"
Mr Rampton said it was to "show the scale of the operation and in due course
to demonstrate that anybody who suggests that these hundreds of thousands of
Jews were sent to these tiny villages in order to restore their health is
either mad or a liar".
Counsel asked him if, for example, the custodian of the museum at Auschwitz
proposed a figure of 1.2 million Jews murdered, he would accept that evidence.
Mr Irving replied: "No. I have got reason not to."
Mr Irving told the judge, who is hearing the case without a jury, that this
was "a very fair summary" of his position.
The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.
Copyright 2000 Times Newspapers Limited The Times (London)
January 18, 2000, Tuesday
You could smell the bodies burning
BY: Eve-Ann Prentice
Anne Frank's stepsister is baffled by the claim that the horrors of
Auschwitz have been exaggerated. Interview by Eve-Ann Prentice
The tattoo has faded with the passing of the years, but memories of the hell
that was Auschwitz are as sharp as ever for Anne Frank's stepsister. The
smudged, blue numbers - A/5272 - were indelibly etched on Eva Geiringer's
lower left arm soon after she and the rest of her family arrived at the
notorious Nazi twin concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944
after being deported in cattlewagons from The Netherlands.
Nearly six decades on, the horror of the Nazis' Final Solution is being
confronted anew in Britain because of the libel action launched by the
historian David Irving against the American academic Deborah Lipstadt and
Penguin Books which published her work, Denying the Holocaust. Mr Irving,
who has told the High Court that the Holocaust was "logistically
impossible", is suing over Ms Lipstadt's claim that he is a "Hitler
partisan" who has twisted history by denying that the Holocaust occurred.
The British Government will, meanwhile, decide by the end of the month
whether to launch a National Holocaust Day from next year to mark the
January 27 liberation of Auschwitz.
Now, as one of the few concentration camp survivors, Eva hopes that
discussing her experiences will ensure that the evils of race will never
rise again. She is promoting a play featuring her own story. She is also
helping to launch a series of exhibitions about Anne Frank, the teenage
Jewish diarist who chronicled her family's life in hiding in Amsterdam
before being captured and deported to Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhoid.
During the opening days of the libel trial last week, Mr Irving brought up
Anne Frank's name after being asked by the defence counsel, Richard Rampton,
QC, how many innocent Jewish people he thought the Germans had killed
deliberately. "She was a Jew who died in the Holocaust and she wasn't
murdered unless you take it in the broadest sense," Mr Irving said of Eva's
stepsister.
Anne and Eva were from separate Jewish families who lived and played
together in the same square in Amsterdam in the early 1940s. Both families
were later destroyed in the concentration camps - Anne Frank's sister and
mother perished, as did Eva's father and elder brother. Then, within days of
being liberated from Auschwitz in the closing days of the war, Eva
introduced her mother to Anne Frank's father, Otto. They met in a railway
siding while travelling on yet another cattle-wagon - this time being
transported to safety by the Russians who helped to rescue them from the
death camp in Poland.
The two widowed parents went on to marry one another in 1953. "I have never
seen a happier marriage, they only had to look at one another," says Eva.
"The marriage lasted 27 years until Otto died in 1980." Eva's mother, whose
life had hung by a thread in her final months at Auschwitz, went on to live
until she was 93, dying two years ago.
Unable to resettle in an Amster- dam laden with memories of her dead brother
and father, Eva moved to Britain in 1951 and two years later married an
economist, Zvi Schloss. Today, 55 years to the month after Eva and her
mother realised that their Nazi tormentors had fled Auschwitz, it is hard to
believe that the fit-looking 70-year-old in neat blue jumper and black
slacks is the same person who, as a 15-year-old, had witnessed a year of
almost unimaginable cruelty. Until, that is, you notice the steely look in
her eye as she rolls back her sleeve to reveal the tattoo.
"I have no feelings of bitterness or hate, but, on the other hand, I do not
believe in the goodness of man," she has written in a book about her
experiences, Eva's Story. "My posthumous stepsister, Anne Frank, wrote in
her diary: 'I still believe that deep down human beings are good at heart.'
I cannot help remembering that she wrote this before she experienced
Auschwitz and Belsen."
Eva was born in Vienna, but the family fled to The Netherlands via Belgium
in 1940 in a vain attempt to escape the Nazis. Her father, Erich Geiringer,
and mother, Elfriede, rented an apartment at 46 Merwedeplein, on the
opposite side of the road to the Franks.
"Anne was one of several playmates I had," says Eva, in the soft and lilting
Austro-Dutch accent which she has never lost. "We were both born in 1929 but
she was far more sophisticated than me. She was interested in boys and
clothes while I was much more immature. I was a tomboy-type. Nonetheless, we
saw one another on a daily basis until our families went into hiding."
It was Eva's 15th birthday, May 11, 1944, when the Gestapo discovered her
family's hiding place. After being beaten up, she and the rest of her family
were taken to a Dutch transit camp at Westerbork before being sent on to
Auschwitz-Birkenau in southwest Poland.
Life in the camp was brutal and precarious. Eva caught the typhoid that
killed Anne Frank, was forced to break stones and plait ropes for 14 hours a
day in the bitter cold of the East European winter, and lived under the
constant threat of being "selected" - or sent to the gas chambers if she
became too weak to work. "You could smell the incinerators and see the
flames shooting out of the top when they had a particularly heavy day
burning bodies," she says.
Eva's feet became infected with open sores caused by frostbite and she and
her mother almost starved to death on the meagre rations of black bread and
vegetable water that passed as soup. "It was more than 50 years ago, but I
can see everything in front of me today. I remember very, very clearly."
Sitting in an elegant room at the offices of the Anne Frank Educational
Trust in Highgate, North London, Eva drinks tea but neglects a plate laden
with chocolate biscuits. There was a time when she was so hungry that she
risked a beating by stealing rotting carrot tops and pumpkin skins from the
dustbins behind the camp kitchen. Once she discovered grains of sugar on the
ground and, moistening her finger, licked up every particle.
Eva's mother came so close to starving to death that in the end she was too
weak to walk. She was, paradoxically, saved because a cousin in the camp
worked in the hospital block and had more privileges than most. The cousin
ensured that Eva's mother was picked out by the dreaded Nazi doctor Josef
Mengele as still fit for work. Eva's mother was then transferred to the camp
hospital. "I thought for a time that my mother was dead...we both barely
survived," she says. The adolescent Eva also watched with horror as other
women, driven mad by privation and fear, threw themselves against the
electrified barbed wire fences and were burnt to death, or were shot in the
back, or killed by dogs, in suicidally futile escape attempts.
Now Eva hopes that her experiences will help future generations to recognise
the early signs of race hate. She says she is also baffled by the Irving
libel trial: "I can't understand that he is suing someone when so many facts
about the Holocaust are available."
For years after the war, Eva suffered digestive problems caused by her
months of privation and from the effects of the frostbite on her feet.Today
the only physical scar remaining is the smudged tattoo - with the
penultimate number scored through and "corrected". There was an error in the
original numbering and Eva had to line up to be retattooed. "My number,
which was A/5232, was changed to A/5272...even with tattooing, everything
had to be done by the book."
Eva and Ed Silverberg, another childhood friend of Anne Frank, feature in a
play that begins touring the UK this month, And Then They Came for Me, by
James Still, which is aimed at school audiences (Tel: 01223 461901). Eva is
also helping to promote a touring exhibition organised by the Anne Frank
Educational Trust which will open at Westminster Central Hall, London, from
January 26 until February 24 (Tel: 0181-340 9077).
###
Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited
Press Association Newsfile
January 19, 2000, Wednesday
HOLOCAUST TRUCK GASSING CASES: I WAS WRONG - HISTORIAN
BY: Cathy Gordon, PA News.
Historian David Irving today admitted he was wrong when he stated publicly
that the gassing of Jews in trucks by the Nazis during the Second World War
was only carried out on a limited and experimental basis.
The author, who is seeking High Court libel damages against US academic
Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books over a claim that he is a "Holocaust
denier", agreed under cross-examination by their barrister that he had been
mistaken.
He was asked by Richard Rampton QC: "Do you now accept that statements you
have made to the effect 'Oh, yes, they used gassing trucks on a very limited
scale to experiment' were quite plainly wrong?"
The 62-year-old author of Hitler's War, who claims he was libelled in Prof
Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory, replied: "Yes."
He told the court: "I am willing to eat humble pie if I have made a=
mistake."
What he had previously said about the scale and nature of those gassed in
trucks was based, he said, on his knowledge at the time.
Mr Irving's admission came after Mr Rampton referred him to a document which
showed that 97,000 Jews were gassed in three trucks in the course of five
weeks.
Mr Justice Gray, who is hearing the case without a jury, asked Mr Irving if
he would describe that as "very limited and experimental".
Stressing that "of course, I did not have this document when I said that",
Mr Irving replied: "No, this is systematic."
Mr Rampton accused the author of making statements about the gassing trucks
"which fly in the face of the available evidence".
He put to him: "I am suggesting that a man in your position does not enter
the arena waving flags and blowing trumpets unless he has taken the trouble
to verify what he is proposing to say, particularly when what he is
proposing to say is something of great sensitivity and importance to
millions of people throughout the world."
Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, denied entering the
arena waving flags and blowing trumpets and said he had made his comment a
press conference in 1989 "in response to a question".
He told the court: "I am not a Holocaust expert. I am a Hitler expert."
Mr Rampton asked: "Then why don't you keep your mouth shut about the
Holocaust?"
Mr Irving: "Because I am asked about it. It obsesses people."
He said he found the phrase "Holocaust denier" repugnant.
The author says he has never claimed that the Holocaust did not take place.
He does, however, question the number of Jewish dead and denies there was a
systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camp gas chambers.
Prof Lipstadt and Penguin Books deny libel. Mr Irving says their book
alleges he has distorted statistics and documents to serve his own
ideological purposes and reach historically untenable conclusions.
Op-Ed Holocaust denial comes back into vogue
BY: Eliahu Salpeter
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=01/19/00&id=
66468
01/19/2000 Ha'aretz Copyright (C) 2000 Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper Ltd.
Dateline: Tel Aviv, Israel; 19 January 2000
What is also bizarre is that, in this courtroom drama, the tables seem to
have been turned. The plaintiff is a known denier of the Holocaust while the
defendant is a historian who has written a book that has blown his argument
to pieces.
Author and historian David Irving has filed a libel suit against Deborah
Lipstadt and against Penguin Books, which published Lipstadt 's book,
"Denying the Holocaust: The growing assault on truth and history."
In his books and lectures, Irving claims that the reports of gas chambers
and of the extermination of six million Jews are false. Lipstadt has refuted
his arguments and he is suing her for "irreversible damage" that she is
accused of causing to his name and professional standing.
At the opening of the trial, Irving declared that he does not deny the
Holocaust: "No person in full command of his mental faculties, and with even
the slightest understanding of what happened in World War II, can deny that
the tragedy actually happened, however much we dissident historians may wish
to quibble about the means, the scale, the dates and other minutiae."
Irving repeated his claim that the mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe was
carried out without Hitler's knowledge.
He allows for the possibility that the S.S. conducted killing experiments in
which gas was used; however, according to Irving, a massacre of the
proportions of the Holocaust is simply not possible logistically.
When asked by the judge whether, in his opinion, six million Jews had been
annihilated by the Nazis, Irving replied: "If I was a Jew, I would be far
more concerned not at who pulled the trigger but why. Anti-Semitism is a
recurring malaise in society. There must be some reason why anti-Semitic
groups break out like some kind of epidemic."
The judge queried whether Irving agreed with the statement that the Germans
had murdered millions of human beings, whereupon Irving answered: "I
hesitate to speculate. It was certainly more than one million, certainly
less than four million."
As Irving sees the situation, he himself is a victim of a world Jewish
conspiracy. He claims that, ever since Lipstadt published her book,
publishers are afraid to publish his works and bookstores are similarly
afraid to sell his books.
Denial of the Holocaust is not new. In fact, it began almost on the day that
the Allies liberated the last of the camps and before the crematoriums had
cooled off. As early as 1948, Paul Rassinel published a book entitled "La
ligne de la passage" that denied the Holocaust and that purportedly based
itself on his own experiences as a concentration camp inmate. In 1965, an
American professor, Austin App, came out with his "The six million swindle,"
in which he argued that the Germans had never drawn up blueprints for
exterminating the Jews of Europe.
In 1973, a former Germany army officer, Theis Christopherson, published "The
lie of Auschwitz," in which he tried to prove that the number of Jews
murdered by the Germans was actually less than 200,000.
Since the mid-1970s, hundreds of books and articles spouting this same kind
of argument have appeared. Most of them have been authored by extreme
right-wingers.
The Irving affair is different and far more important than all these other
episodes, because of his supposed expertise in the historical field, because
of his writing skills and because of his capacity for locating documents
whose contents he can twist to suit his particular ideological tendencies.
Trials have taken place in the past on the subject of Holocaust denial, but
in those cases the litigation was initiated in countries where Holocaust
denial is considered a criminal offense.
This time, however, the Holocaust denier is the plaintiff who must therefore
provide the burden of proof.
Although the formal cause of the litigation now taking place is the
plaintiff's demand of compensation for damages, it is obvious that the
central issue and the chief historical importance of this trial are in the
fact that it will be a judicial clarification of the question as to whether
the Holocaust took place and whether six million European Jews were
exterminated by the Nazis and their collaborators.
Irving, who has written 30 history books, acquired a certain reputation at
the start of his professional career, although his more recent production
does not meet the standards of historical research. He has become lionized
by neo-Nazis and other anti-Semites.
It is, of course, no mere coincidence that Holocaust denial goes
hand-in-hand with racism and anti-Semitism.
"Holocaust denial," states a background paper issued by the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai Brith, "is a contemporary form of the classic anti-Semitic
doctrine of the evil, manipulative and threatening world Jewish conspiracy."
The background paper also notes: "Holocaust denial ... has emerged as an
important 'cutting edge' ideological cement of the diverse hate movements in
the 1990s ... as a powerful conspiracy theory uniting otherwise disparate
fringe groups (e.g., Liberty Lobby, various [Ku Klux] Klan factions,
neo-Nazis ... racist skinheads, etc.)."
In his lectures, Irving sounds less cautious than the statements he is now
making in the courtroom.
Speaking before an audience in Calgary, for example, he came out with the
following utterance: "I don't see any reason to be tasteful about Auschwitz.
It is baloney. It is a legend.
"I say quite tastelessly, in fact, that more women died in the backseat of
Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in
Auschwitz."
Lipstadt 's book appeared in the United States in 1993 and thus it seems
natural to ask why it took Irving six years to sue.
The answer is complex, apparently, for several reasons.
Historical revisionism is all the rage, after all, and perhaps Irving
believes that the trend could serve his best interests when he argues, in
his defense, that he and other historians have the basic right to look at
events from a perspective that differs from what is accepted.
Perhaps he is hoping that today, as Jewish organizations present restitution
claims in the billions of dollars on behalf of the Holocaust's victims, the
arguments of Holocaust deniers will sound sweeter to the ears of many
listeners.
It is also possible that Irving thinks that, with the majority of Holocaust
survivors in their graves or suffering from weak memories, the defense will
be hard put to find reliable witnesses to counter his claims.
It is impossible to say whether the trials being conducted today against
Bosnian or Rwandan war criminals will prevent crimes against humanity in the
future. What is clear, however, is that if the London courtroom where the
Irving- Lipstadt trial is underway makes peace with the denial of the
Holocaust, the deterrent effect of these current trials for war crimes will
be significantly diminishedThe following is surely one of the most bizarre
phenomena of the modern era: Although World War II ended 55 years ago,
although thousands of memoirs and research studies have described the
atrocities committed during that period and although museums from Washington
to Jerusalem have documented those atrocities, perhaps one of the most
important trials pertaining to the denial of the Holocaust opened last week
in London.

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